#7. The Monster Wolf of Jirisan (2)
#7. The Monster Wolf of Jirisan (2)
I climbed trees, leaped from branch to branch, and scaled what looked like the tallest peak. At the top, I found a rock with characters carved into it. The trail sign had rotted to splinters long ago, but the letters chiseled into the stone were still legible.
般若峰
Banyabong Peak
1732m
Banyabong... that doesn't help. If I were at Cheonji or Baekrokdam, I might have had a clue, but a random peak name was useless to anyone but a mountaineer.
And I had figured that if I could just get high enough, I would spot a city below. But there was nothing — mountains in every direction, nothing else. Clearly, 'National Park' wasn't just a label. That was how they could release bears into the wild in a place this vast. Standing at 1,700 meters and still seeing nothing but mountains... experiencing it firsthand was just disheartening.
If I picked a direction and kept walking, I'd hit civilization eventually... but I needed to think harder. I had the knowledge. I could figure this out.
Jirisan straddles Gyeongsang and Jeolla provinces. If I head north, sooner or later I'll reach Seoul.
I know the basic method for finding direction, but that requires a watch. Still, let's reason it out. The sun rises in the east, the opposite side is west... when I stand facing the center, north should be to my right. ...Right?
***
"Team Leader. I've reached Chilseonbong."
[Found anything?]
"Just leftover meat."
The team leader's puzzlement crackled through the radio.
[Leftover meat?]
"Quite a bit of it along the way. Probably..."
[That would be it.]
Nothing in these mountains hunted for sport except that monster. An Asiatic black bear, maybe — but those rarely hunt at all.
"...The blood's congealed, and the carcasses have gone stiff. Doesn't look like it's nearby."
Woo-taek scanned his surroundings again, studying the trail. Even when he spread his mana wide, his senses picked up nothing.
[Can you track it?]
"I'll try."
He wasn't confident. The team leader accepted that and the transmission cut out.
"Understood."
Without thinking, Woo-taek checked his phone. A message had arrived.
[Track analysis suggests a large canine species. Estimated size abnormally large. Shoulder height estimated at 2 meters...]
"Two meters?"
The appraisal results he'd requested. Woo-taek frowned.
'Shoulder height, not standing height — two meters?'
That couldn't be right. Even for a monster, the Wargs he knew weren't nearly that big. Two meters at the shoulder meant a creature that dwarfed tigers and lions. He shut his eyes, trying to picture it, then shook his head. No, something didn't add up.
The Warg in the video footage hadn't looked that large either, had it?
A sudden thought sent a chill down his spine. Before he could even decide whether he was right, he knew he had to warn them. He grabbed the radio.
***
A presence flickered at the edge of her senses — just for an instant — then vanished as quickly as it had come. No ordinary creature. It might be the Warg she was hunting. Lee Eun-ha decided to press on.
The trace had faded so fast she almost convinced herself it was her imagination. But her mana sense still insisted this direction was right, and that only hardened her conviction. If the gap wasn't closing, then her target was moving faster than she was. A Warg could certainly manage that.
'Any further and I'm in Banyabong territory...'
She had passed her assigned search zone some time ago. Eun-ha hesitated, then shook her head. She'd already come too far to turn back without results. When she belatedly reached for her radio to report in, only harsh static screeched back at her — it refused to connect. She must have gone slightly out of range. Annoying, but better to wrap this up fast and head back.
After all, it was just one Warg.
"I wasn't planning to use mana for this..."
She chewed her lip and pulled on the power within.
Mana — a force that could be nearly limitlessly versatile depending on the user's skill and capacity. She drew out the mana that had always lain dormant inside her, an innate gift. The way she used it would have horrified any other hunter, but her outrageous talent made even the most nonsensical applications possible.
'Segway. EUC.'
What common folk called a self-balancing scooter. She stepped onto the mana-constructed Segway, and its wheels began to turn — slowly at first, then faster. A good day, apparently — her output felt better than usual. She was pushing close to eighty kilometers per hour. Whether that would be enough to catch a Warg was another question, but she was already committed.
That presence she'd sensed earlier — her mana detection told her it was getting closer. Not terribly fast, actually. Was it not a Warg after all? Less than a minute from intercept, and Lee Eun-ha found herself scanning the forest around her with blank, uncomprehending eyes.
...What... what the hell is this?
Red. Everything red. A heartbeat later her mind registered what she was looking at. Blood. The entire area was steeped in it. And scattered everywhere, broken into ghastly shapes — bones, flesh, carcasses. The horror of it gnawed at her concentration. Mana was a force rooted in the user's will and focus. The moment her concentration shattered, the manifested Segway began dissolving beneath her feet.
'...!'
Stunned, Eun-ha barely managed to clamp a hand over her mouth and choke back the bile rising in her throat.
[——...—]
The field radio crackled again. She must have gone well beyond her assigned range, because the signal had only gotten worse. She tried to work the controls, but her hands were shaking too badly to cooperate. Tch-tk, tch-tk — she bit down harder on her lip and turned to retreat.
This place was dangerous. If she left now, right now—
"———!"
A howl drilled into her ears.
In the same instant, Lee Eun-ha threw herself into a roll across the ground.
—WHAM! The impact came a half-second later. She whipped her head around just in time to see the Black Wolf pulling its skull out of the tree trunk it had plowed into, licking its chops like it was disappointed.
A hit like that should've rattled any living thing — the creature didn't even seem fazed. Monstrous durability, just as expected.
'...Warg.'
It was real. It had been here all along. Eun-ha kept her eyes locked on the Black Wolf and swallowed dryly. So this was what she'd been chasing... well, good.
She'd put it down, report in, and be done. She steadied her breathing and gathered herself. The scene around her had thrown her, sure — but if she kept her head, a single Warg was nothing.
Reassuring herself, Eun-ha spread her palm and mimed crumpling something in her fist. The Warg, failing to parse the gesture, cocked its head — but only for a moment. She laced her fingers together as if interlocking both hands, and the Warg's body seized rigid.
Sufficiently potent mana could exert force purely through its presence. This technique was nothing more than the crushing pressure of mana applied inward from every direction.
"Distort...!"
Spatial Distortion. The Warg strained against it with everything it had, but the constriction kept tightening. The closer Eun-ha's hands drew together into a fist, the harder the Warg shuddered. Crrrck — craaack. Bones splintered through hide, muscle warped under impossible pressure, and the Warg screamed a soundless scream.
[——. ...reporting. The Warg population of Jirisan is now estimated at — or more. One among them is — presumed a Special —. All hunters C-Class and below are — return immediately. This is an order... ——.]
Eun-ha's fist was halfway closed. The Warg hung suspended in midair, ribs already jutting through its pelt. From the start, the Warg had been no match for her. Just as the team leader had calculated — any member of Dawn could handle a Warg without much trouble. The thought that it was over loosened the tension in her mind for a single beat.
"——!"
Something slammed into her from behind.
The impact sent her tumbling across the dirt, blood spraying from her mouth before she even understood what had happened. Without her D-rank skill — Mana Armor — the hit might have killed her outright.
...How?
The answer came crackling out of the radio she'd failed to silence earlier.
[Repeating warning. Jirisan Warg population now estimated at two or more. One among them is presumed to be a Special Species. All hunters C-Class and below — return immediately. This is an order.]
The signal must have caught up while she was rolling — the voice now came through crystal clear.
'...Two?'
Turning, Eun-ha found herself face-to-face with a massive Wolf — the kind of creature the word despair was made for — its coat a void-deep black.
The radio warning — Special Species Warg. She knew in an instant that this was what it had meant. It stared down at her with eyes stained a violent, madness-red.
"———."
A low rumble. Her heart lurched as if it had stopped.
Even bleeding out, she gathered her hands to distort space again. The monster snorted — a sound that could only be called contemptuous amusement. Go on, then. Try. She wrenched space with every ounce of power she had, but the strain bit back at her so fiercely it felt like the joints between her fingers would tear apart.
This was nothing like the Warg from moments before.
Special Species — a monster that possessed not only its racial traits but unique individual skills. And that wasn't all. Its sheer size marked it unmistakably as a Superior Species, far beyond the norm.
A Special Species and a Superior Species in one nightmare...!
Holding the creature at bay by the thinnest of margins, Lee Eun-ha felt a light-headed dizziness creeping in. The precursor to mana burnout — when reckless overuse drove the user toward a coma.
'I shouldn't have come...'
Regret always arrives too late.
Lee Eun-ha bit her lip until it nearly bled.